Single-stock perps cleared in the US as watchdog calls them “another gambling product”

A day after Better Markets referred to single-stock perpetual futures as “another gambling product,” the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has announced that single-stock perpetual futures can now be traded on US exchanges.

The announcement was made by CFTC Chairman Michael Selig.

What the CFTC actually opened the door to

Michael Selig, the Chairman of the CFTC, said that “Equity Perps” can now be listed on CFTC-registered venues. Equity Perps are perpetual futures linked with individual equity securities.

This was said in a statement released by the CFTC on November 3, 2026. However, the CFTC has mandated that for an exchange to trade Equity Perps, it must also be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a notice-registered national securities exchange with clearance to trade security futures products.

Perpetual futures are different from other futures because they provide a trader with continuous, leveraged exposure to a price without a set expiry. These futures also require periodic funding payments to be settled, as opposed to a delivery date.

The idea behind clearing Equity Perps is simple; it keeps activity within American shores. US traders can now access these products under the purview of the CFTC, as opposed to being routed to offshore exchanges that may be unregulated.

Better Markets calls it a gambling product

Not everyone sees Equity Perps as an advantage. Better Markets, a reform group, called Equity Perps another gambling product. The group published a fact sheet with the title “Single-Stock Perpetual Futures Are Another Gambling Product.”

Benjamin Schiffrin, the Securities Policy Director of Better Markets, objected to Equity Perps for a single reason: leverage.

In his view, a perp serves to magnify gains and losses; thus, “a small movement in the price of the underlying stock can lead to a 100% loss of the investment in the perpetual.”

He went on to opine that Equity Perps were labeled wrongly, referring to them as a form of security-based swaps with tight limits on retail sale, since they had no expiry date.

Schiffrin does not see a benefit to owning these stocks either, because perpetuals monitor share prices but do not provide the same rights that come with owning the actual stock. They do not aid in capital formation, which begs the question: why would a retail investor choose an Equity Perp over the actual stock?

Building on the bitcoin perp precedent

It is no surprise that the CFTC has gone in this direction considering its precedents. Earlier this year, on May 29, the agency granted the BTCPERP contract approval to be listed on KalshiEX, a designated contract market. The BTCPERP is a bitcoin perpetual.

Tarek Mansour, the CEO of Kalshi, said his firm cleared $1 billion in perpetual futures volume in the first week of launching.

Chairman Selig framed that decision as onshoring, rather than deregulation. The main focus, according to Selig, was bringing equity perps under American oversight and nothing more. He went on to say that the CFTC would begin with leverage of up to 10x, a threshold he considered reasonable.

The CFTC started drafting its own crypto rules once the CLARITY Act made little progress in the Senate.

The futures-or-swap fight is not settled

The proper classification of a perpetual is still a matter of debate. Eversheds Sutherland, a Law firm, has said that there are questions as to whether contracts are classified as futures or swaps.

The answer to that question will determine which one of the two agencies, the CFTC or the SEC, gets to provide oversight.

Others like Terry Duffy, the Group CEO of CME, believe perpetuals should not be classified as futures in any way. His argument is that a contract that does not expire and also tracks spot via a funding rate should be called a swap, not a future. He also took issue with the speed with which the CFTC spent reviewing BTCPERP, believing it should have gone beyond 24 hours.